Connecting MS Access to the Web

This
tutorial will use Apache, PHP and Microsoft Access for database connectivity.
PHP and Apache are free but covered under an Open Source Agreement.
Instructions on how to install these software packages are provided below.

Install Microsoft Access97 or
2000. Make sure all ODBC drivers are installed.

Apache is a powerful web server
and PHP is a powerful scripting language. PHP and Apache tied with many available
databases enable powerful Internet
and e-commerce solutions for businesses today.

Behind the web page:

You click on a link from
your web browser; http://www.IwantanAinthisclass.edu/index.php3.

That sends a request to
the web server for the file index.extension (where extension is .cfm, .php3,
or .asp )

Your web server has already
been configured to know that *.extension is handled by another "interpreting"
program. So web server sends the file to that program.

Interpreting program, "reads"
page. Processes all commands within page. One command is connection to database,
plus get information from database.

Program converts all commands
and statements to HTML (or as designed by) programmer.

Then HTML goes back to web
server and Web server
sends requested page back to back to you.

Installing Apache and PHP

What is PHP? PHP is a server-side,
cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language. http://www.php.net

What is Apache? Apache has
been the most popular web server on the Internet since April of 1996 according
to the Netcraft Survey. http:// www.apache.org

To install Apache and PHP
on the Windows platform read the following tutorial:

Choose configure -> Type
easy to remember name in "Data Source Name", give it a description
and then click "Select..." to locate your database. You can also do
other things, for example, add password, using the "Advanced ..."
button, but we do not need that in this case.

Thatís it! Youíre done with
database setup.

PHP is the actual link to
the database. Make sure that your PHP configuration file enables the ODBC.dll.
Read the tutorials above to ensure this is correct.

Developing an Interactive Website

Inserting information into a database

Using Business
database mentioned before we can:
- Add a Business Information (Name, Address, Phone #, etc. )
- Retrieve Business information

Create web form using any
HTML editor.

When <submit> is clicked,
information is pushed into database. Actually, index2.php3 is called with
the PHP script embedded in the HTML page.

index2.php3

No HTML is written,
just a PHP script that handles the data. PHP automatically creates variables to
match the text boxes on the previous pages. The names of these variables are derived
from the names of the text boxes in the previous HTML form.